Spain today was suddenly imploding. We should say suddenly with a bit of sarcasm, after all, we've been watching Europe put their fingers in the never ending European financial dike for years now.
The German Bundestag voted Thursday to approve the $122 billion banking bailout, but only if the Spanish government accepted full liability for the loans. “There will be no direct bank financing,” said Volker Kauder, head of the Christian Democratic delegation in the Bundestag.
Truth be told this is just another day in the adventures of Eurozone financial crises. U.S. Treasury bonds are hitting record lows as a mass exodus from Europe seeks safe assets.
U.S. Treasuries yields fell to new record lows on Monday as concern that the euro zone's debt crisis is spiraling out of control led investors to seek out the relative safety of U.S. debt.
Germany and U.K. bonds yields are also hitting record lows as the flight to safe haven continues.
HSBC is a bank. They are also a money launderer. Last week the Senate subcommittee on investigations, part of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, issued a report (pdf) and held a hearing, U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History. Contained within is a laundry list, if we can use the pun, of HSBC evil doings and how they mechanically laundry money for drug cartels, terrorists and tax evaders.
This is over a decade past 9/11 and seemingly HSBC has been operating with impunity. One of the conduits for money laundering is correspondent banking. Correspondent banking is when one financial institution provides services to another financial institution to move funds, exchange currencies, cash monetary instruments, or carry out other financial transactions. Even though in 2002, correspondent banking was recognized as a primary method to fund terrorist activities, the doors have not been shut.
Correspondent accounts continue to provide a gateway into the U.S. financial system, and wrongdoers continue to abuse that entryway.
Below is what has been done since 9/11, yet correspondent banking is alive and well.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy! Tonight we have three videos.
Another week, another bit of bad news for workers and the stagnant economy drone continues. Initial weekly unemployment claims for the week ending on July 14, 2012 were 386,000,. The DOL reports this as an increase of 34,000 from last week's revised figure of 352,000 people filing for unemployment benefits.
The NAR released their June 2012 Existing Home Sales. Existing home sales plunged -5.4% and inventories ticked up to 6.6 months of supply. May existing home sales were revised to no change from April. Existing homes sales have increased 4.5% from June of last year.
The June 2012 Residential construction report showed Housing starts increased, +6.9%, from May's revised 711,000, to a level of 760,000. In May, housing starts decreased -4.8%. Housing starts are above 23.6% from a year ago, outside the ±16.8% margin of error. Single family housing starts increased +4.7%.
The newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will start to oversee the companies who generate credit reports on you. That's Experian, Equifax and TransUnion plus about 30 more.
This action can come none too soon. Unscrupulous debt collectors inaccurately report actions to credit reporting bureaus all the time, especially for Medical bills. Getting these illegal collections or inaccuracies and errors off of one's credit report is next to impossible. Credit reporting agencies simply do not respond it seems to challenges. Experian, as an example, doesn't even have a phone number! Of course you can sue them, but even small claims court is not for the faint of heart and it's not guaranteed one will win, even when being in the right.
One of the biggest problems turning up on credit reports are medical bills. Who does not know billing from Medical facilities is loaded with errors, duplicates and mistakes? Yet more and more Medical companies are turning into the sellers of debt and even bring debt collectors into the Medical practices themselves. That's sloppy, inaccurate medical debt, often for services subpar or not rendered. Literally the health care sector is in the business of selling debt, demanding loan shark interest rates, almost the minute you walk out the door from their facility.
The June Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, was unchanged from May. The reason was gasoline prices, which dropped again, this time -2.0% from last month and up 1.7% for the year. Cheaper gas offset other increases. Below is the graph for CPI's monthly percentage change.
Spain today was suddenly imploding. We should say suddenly with a bit of sarcasm, after all, we've been watching Europe put their fingers in the never ending European financial dike for years now.
HSBC is a bank. They are also a money launderer. Last week the Senate 
Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop. 
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy! Tonight we have three videos. 
The newly formed
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